On the Friday before Christmas, President Joe Biden (D) signed the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, setting a year’s worth of spending limits and policy for national security programs, including those at the Department of Energy. The bill is separate from annual appropriations bills that fund government agencies. Agencies including DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are funded at 2023 levels through Jan. 19 under a stopgap spending bill.
As reported in November, the final 2024 NDAA does not contain a Senate-sponsored packaged of nuclear-energy reforms that would have greased the skids for development and export of U.S. advanced nuclear reactors, levied new reporting requirements at the Department of Energy, extended federal indemnity for nuclear reactor operators and increased congressional scrutiny of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s workforce.
The final NDAA does require the director of national intelligence to examine whether U.S. intelligence agencies should use nuclear energy. The director, a cabinet-level official in the Joe Biden administration, would have to deliver a classified report to Congress 180 days after the bill becomes law.
Radioactive Waste Management, one of the the United Kingdom-owned companies that plans to merge this year into an entity called Nuclear Waste Services, dealt with cyber attacks originating on LinkedIn in the year ended March 31, according to a Dec. 15 accounting filed with Companies House, a U.K. government agency.
“We have seen instances of potential exploitation of ownership change through specific attack vectors, predominantly LinkedIn Targeting,” according to the thirteenth page of the account, a document analogous to an annual 10-K in the U.S.
Neil Subin left Centrus Energy Corp.’s board of directors on New Year’s Eve, capping a roughly six-year stint on the board, the company said in a press release ahead of the winter holidays.
Subin, a wealth manager, remains a Centrus investor, the company said in the press release. He had been on the board since 2017, the company said. Centrus’ board planned to replace him.
